


Practically Gushing

by thegladelf



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Friendly intervention, Male Friendship, aka Clark butts his nose in where it doesn't belong, also snarking, and Bruce can trust Dick with absolutely zero secrets, lots of snarking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 18:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12687861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegladelf/pseuds/thegladelf
Summary: After the JLA finds out about Bruce and Selina's engagement, Clark decides he needs to confront Bruce on his choice of life partner. Because there is no way this ends well... Is there?





	Practically Gushing

Every time he visited, Clark couldn’t get over the fact that the Cave never really changed. No matter the season, no matter the fixtures that changed, it was always large, dark, and dank. And slightly claustrophobic. Which was saying something when the only thing standing between him and the surface were a few layers of bedrock and about three seconds. He would never understand how Bruce could spend so much time in here, but he did, and so here Clark was.

And he was probably going to regret it.

He touched down lightly, but as ever, it wasn’t lightly enough.

Bruce set down the armor-plated glove he was inspecting and sighed, glaring at the cave's ceiling. His belt lay on the counter before him, along with most of his gear, but he’d changed out of the suit into track pants and a muscle shirt. A soft, gauze bandage wrapped around his bicep.

"You know," Bruce said without turning around, "I'm going to revoke your security clearance if you keep showing up unannounced, Clark."

Clark rolled his eyes. "Because that would stop me."

"It will if I incorporate kryptonite into my security."

"You wouldn't."

Bruce turned finally and raised one eyebrow.

"Nevermind," Clark muttered. "I forgot who I was talking to."

His friend returned to inspecting his gear, reaching for a set of small tools when he found that one of the joins didn't bend properly. He didn’t appear to favor the injured arm as he worked, but then with Bruce that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

Did he do this every night?

Of course, he did. Bruce was meticulous, always had been.

Which was why the issue at hand didn't make any sense to Clark.

"Spit it out, Clark," Bruce said gruffly, his eyes on his work the entire time.

"I feel like I should revisit the kryptonite issue and find out if you have any on you first," Clark half-joked.

"Why? Will I need it?" To his credit, he didn’t reach for the utility belt and the lead-lined pouch that Clark knew contained a kryptonite ring.

"You might not like what I have to say." Clark scratched behind his ear. This whole thing made him uncomfortable. With anyone else, he’d consider this progress for his friend. A sign that maybe Bruce could move past the cave and the cowl and the unhappiness.

"I already know what you have to say."

Clark crossed his arms. "I doubt it."

"Did you forget who you're talking to again?" The tools clinked against the work surface as Bruce set them down. He seemed satisfied with his repair job, because he moved onto the next piece.

"Was that a joke?"

Bruce grunted.

Clark didn't bother waiting for his full attention. Anyone who knew Bruce just accepted the fact that half of his brain was always working on something even in the middle of a conversation.

"It's about Selina."

Bruce didn't even blink. "Can you hand me that wrench?"

"Are you sure about this?" Clark continued, handing him the tool. He leaned back against the work table. "With her history...she's a thief, Bruce."

"And your point is?"

"I don't trust her."

"Lucky for all of us that you're not the one marrying her, then." Bruce finished fiddling with the wrench, setting it aside as he laid open one of his gauntlets. He picked up a soft cloth lying nearby and began to clean the inside.

"I'm serious.” He laid a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, but his friend shrugged it off. “How do you know she's in this for the right reasons?"

Bruce paused. "Just what are you insinuating?"

"You're Bruce Wayne." Clark waved his hand at Bruce. "And she's Catwoman. I don't think she could find a bigger score."

"Contrary to popular belief, I’m not the richest man in the world.” The temperature around them dropped with each clipped word. Bruce paused. He frowned at the gauntlet. “That would be your friend Lex.”

“He’s not my—” Clark sighed. Bruce was the most stubborn, pig-headed person he’d ever met.

“Besides, if Selina wanted my fortune, she wouldn’t need to marry me.”

“Feeling altruistic?”

Bruce shook his head. “I haven’t met a security system yet that she couldn’t get inside.”

“Bruce…she’s killed people. Hundreds of people.”

“It wasn’t her,” Bruce said, bending down to inspect a circuit in the glove.

“And you know that how?”

“Because she told me, Clark.” He pursed his lips together, his brow furrowing. “Someone she cared about was involved. Selina took the fall.”

Clark crossed his arms. Of all the people he knew, Bruce had always been the hardest to read. But certain things couldn’t be hidden. Like a heartbeat. And his hadn’t stuttered since Clark entered the cave. Bruce wasn’t lying. But that didn’t mean he knew the truth.

“And you believe her?”

The gauntlet hit the counter as Bruce turned on him. “I trust her.”

Clark blinked.

“Selina isn’t a killer. She may be many other things, but that is not one of them.” He picked his tools back up, returning to quietly tinkering with the instrument panel. “I know her, Clark, and more importantly, she knows me. She knows the worst about me and she still… has my back.”

There was something unspoken in that statement, a skip in his steady rhythm that said there was something else he’d almsot said. Before Clark could dig further though, he heard another sound.

“What is it?” Bruce asked.

“Engine.”

“Motorcycle?”

Clark raised an eyebrow. “Oh, do you have super-hearing now too?”

“Kent.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Selina’s the only one not home.” He jerked his chin at the platform full of vehicles. All of them lined up neatly in their designated spaces. There was a conspicuous space between two of the bikes.

A moment later, the motorcycle’s growl filled the cave, the noise reaching into the furthest recesses. Catwoman cut the engine and coasted into the empty space. Bruce set down the tools he’d been tinkering with. And there it was, another skip, his pulse speeding up. Down on the roundabout, a different heartbeat answered in kind as Selina caught Bruce’s eye. A different person might have missed the subtle glance in Clark’s direction as she pushed her goggles and hood away from her face. Clark didn’t.

He started rethinking a lot of things.

“Hello, boys,” Selina said as she ascended the stairs. “Social call? Or is something nefarious afoot?”

“Social call,” Clark replied.

“You’re late,” Bruce said.

“Oh.” She grinned at him, carefully moving aside pieces of an armored panel as she took a seat on the counter. Bruce didn’t even sigh. She bumped his arm with her knee. “Were you worried?”

“Of course not.”

“Yes he was!” Dick called from inside the locker room. He emerged, toweling off his hair. He looked far more comfortable with the scene before him than Clark was. He sauntered over, leaning on the opposite side of the counter. “As evidenced by the fact that he’s still up…”

Selina snorted. “That’s hardly proof of anything. There are vampires that go to bed earlier than Bruce does.”

Dick considered this statement for a moment. “True. But he’s also tinkering. That’s what the fourth time you’ve been over all of this?”

“I missed corroded circuit.”

“Uh huh.” Pointedly ignoring the way Bruce’s hand moved from the table to Selina’s knee, Dick said, “Well, he’s not going to ask, but I’m curious…you run into trouble tonight?”

“Aw, were you worried about me too, Baby Bird?” She leaned back to ruffle his hair as Dick batted her hand away. “Nothing exciting. Harley and Ivy ambushed me...” Selina chuckled when Bruce stepped back, a look of concern on his face. She ran a hand over his shoulder. “Not that kind of ambush, Bat. Relax. They wanted to discuss a bachelorette party. Don’t worry, I told them someone else was handling it.”

Clark snorted. “I’d hate to see what Harley Quinn’s idea of a bachelorette looked like.”

“Most likely?” Selina shrugged. “A trip to the toy store and a night at some amusement park. Ivy’s the one you’d really need to worry about.”

“Yep.” Dick pick up a screwdriver and absently twirled it. “Her idea of fun usually involves drugging half of Gotham’s male population.”

“And ecoterrorism.”

Hew smacked himself on the forehead. “How could I forget the ecoterrorism?”

“She’s probably whammied you one too many times,” Selina shot back. She sighed. “Honestly, I’m having more trouble with…” She stopped, her eyes darting to Dick as she reconsidered what she was about to say. “The Birds. They apparently think it’s silly to wait until after I’m cleared of murder charges to go dress shopping.”

Clark tilted his head. “I assume we’re not talking about the Hitchcock movie.”

“The Birds of Prey,” Dick said softly. “Batgirl’s group. Selina works with them sometimes.”

Selina and Bruce exchanged a look.

Clark decided not to ask.

“Speaking of work…” Selina tapped the bandage wrapped around Bruce’s arm with one clawed finger. “I thought we agreed you weren’t getting shot again this week.”

“I believe the word I used was ‘try’.” Bruce reached up for her hand, pulling it away and lacing his fingers with hers. “It’s just a graze. It’s fine.”

“You’re not the only one that worries, you know.”

“I know.”

Clark got the distinct feeling that his presence had been forgotten.

Dick felt the same way, apparently, because he cleared his throat. Loudly. “Sometimes, I miss the days when you sent me to get evidence before you two got all touchy feely. And, yes, the double meaning was intentional.”

Selina laughed and the spell was broken. Both Clark and Dick let out a sigh of relief.

She leaned in, kissing Bruce on the cheek before hopping off the counter. “Well, I am off to bed. Some of us need our sleep to stay in a good mood.”

“Oh, is that Bruce’s problem?” Clark asked. He raised one eyebrow. “He’s sleep-deprivation makes him cranky.”

Dick muttered something that sounded like, “Hell, yes.”

Selina shrugged, a sly smile on her face. “I only know of one thing that improves Bruce’s mood.”

Clark braced himself. With this group, he should have known better than to ask.

“Justice,” Selina and Dick said at the same time. They hit the inflection perfectly.

Bruce shook his head with a sigh, but Clark caught a twitch at the corner of his mouth that could almost be called a smile. Dick held his hand up, leaning over the table and meeting Selina’s palm with a satisfying smack.

“You two are ridiculous,” Bruce grumbled.

“And you love it.”

Bruce didn’t reply, but as Selina brushed past him, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ll be up as soon as I finish repairing this.”

She smiled, a soft, private smile and returned the gesture.

He watched as she took the stairs up to the manor, waiting until she was out of sight before he returned to his work.

Dick sighed. “You two are lucky you’re so adorable. Or I would complain. G’night, Blue.”

His footsteps echoed as he tread up the stairs, his towel slung over his shoulder. He was whistling.

Silence stretched between Clark and Bruce, broken only by the occasional clack of Bruce setting a tool down as he worked the circuit away from the hardened material.

“She really loves you, doesn’t she?” Clark said. He leaned against the table, his eyes on his friend.

“Does that surprise you?”

“Not as much as you loving her surprises me.” He held up a hand to cut Bruce off before he protested, but he’d forgotten who he was talking to again. Bruce never wasted words proving someone wrong when he could use actions. “Don’t get me wrong, I always knew you had it in you, but I never thought you’d allow yourself to feel that way about anyone.”

Bruce smiled that half smile again. “I’m not sure it’s anything I allowed to happen…it just…I belonged to her before I even knew what had happened.”

“Dear Rao, you’re practically gushing. Who thought I’d live to see the day that Batman was reduced to a lovestruck swain.” Clark grinned. He had never been more pleased to be proved wrong.

“Is there a point to this, Clark?”

Clark clapped his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, gently. “How crucial is it that that circuit get repaired right now?”

“It’s crucial that all my gear be in working order when I’m on patrol,” Bruce said darkly.

“Life is short, Bruce. This can wait until later.” He didn’t wait to see if Bruce would take his advice. It was high time he headed home himself.

After all, life was short.

 


End file.
